Crave

The Canon Vixia HF S11 equipped with the RA-V1 LANC adapter

(Credit: Matthew Fitzgerald/CNET)

If you've a yen to pay $1,399.99 for an HD camcorder, Canon now gives you an option. It extends its HF S10/S100 line upward to the HF S11, which adds another 32GB memory, bringing the total to 64GB for the top-of-the-consumer-line. Plus it follows Sony's example, adding an enhanced version of its SuperRange optical image stabilizer, dubbed Dynamic SuperRange OIS, which compensates better while walking and at wide angles. Canon has also boosted its Video Snapshot mode; it's now Advanced, which seems to mean you can pull 4-second clips in playback mode, as well as in capture mode.

An ancillary announcement, though, should please the users who bemoan the lack of wired remote support in many modern camcorders. (They allow more streamlined tripod-based operation.) The $120 RA-V1 Remote Control Adapter adds a LANC terminal to camcorders that use Canon's Mini Accessory shoe.

Both products are expected to ship in mid-September.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 photos

Panasonic overhauls the insides of its popular FZ28 megazoom with the Lumix DMC-FZ35: higher resolution, improved optical image stabilizer, faster AF, and a new movie codec.

In addition to the same 1/2.33-inch 12-megapixel sensor found in models launched this spring, such as the TS1, the camera uses the new Power OIS, optimized for low-frequency handshake, which, according to Panasonic, adds 2 stops of shake reduction and is most effective in low light. There's also a new high-speed AF system that is twice as fast as the old, according to the company. The lens is the same 18x f2.8-4.4 27-486mm-equivalent as the old model.

Though the FZ28 supported 720p movie capture, the FZ35 updates it to use the more efficient AVCHD Lite codec, which also supports stereo sound. Like the GH1, and unlike many competitors, the FZ35 will let you adjust shutter speed and aperture for movie recording.

Oddly, Panasonic makes a big deal about the FZ35's "extended battery life of approximately 470 pictures"--but the FZ28 is CIPA rated at 460 pictures, a pretty trivial increase.

Slated to ship in mid August, the Lumix DMC-FZ35 will cost $399.

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Though it's not quite a year since Sony announced the HDR-CX12 flash-memory-based AVCHD camcorder, it looks like it's time for a replacement. With a six month lag behind their hard-drive based siblings, the HDR-XR500V and HDR-XR520V, the HDR-CX500V, and the HDR-CX520V promise some much-needed enhancements over their solid-but-flawed brothers.

Sony Handycam CX520V photos

The two models, which differ only by built-in memory--the 500V has 32GB while the 520V includes 64GB--use the same Exmor-R back-illuminated sensor and G-series 12X zoom lens as the XR versions, so we expect them to deliver the same high-quality video, and both retain the novelty geotagging capability for video and new Active SteadyShot image stabilization for use while walking. For the newer models, Sony has made some much-needed improvements to the user interface, as well as added another axis (roll) of electronic image stabilization. The CX500V/CX520V retain a manual control dial, although it's in the back of the unit rather than on the lens barrel. Other enhancements: Face Touch for face detection, the capability to upconvert to 60p playback when connected to a TV via HDMI and in-camcorder downconverting to MPEG-2 (for direct-to-DVD transfers).

While these flash models retain most of the capabilities of the hard drive versions, Sony did jettison the EVF. Grrr. Their main competitors, the Canon Vixia HF S10 and HF S100, don't have EVFs either, but that doesn't mean we have to like them. The HDR-CX500V and HDR-CX520V are slated to ship in September for $1,099 and $1,299, respectively.

Panasonic HDC-TM10 and HDC-SD10 photos

Though announced a few weeks ago overseas, Panasonic now thinks the time is right to allow its newest camcorders to grace American soil. The AVCHD HDC-TM10 and SD10 replace their older siblings, the TM20 and SD20 at the same prices, with a couple of improvements. (The hard-disk-based HDC-HS20 remains in the lineup.)

For one, the TM10/SD10 eschews the unnecessary 5.1 surround audio in favor of a more basic stereo mic system. The new models also switch from a Leica to a Panasonic lens, though they're still 16x zooms. The lens does incorporate Panasonic's new Active optical image stabilization, which is designed to compensate for additonal vibration incurred while walking and other secondary motion. Finally, as is typical, the newer models are a bit lighter and more compact than the older ones.

I don't know if the new lens is significantly better than the old, but chances are the camcorders will be relatively similar. That means if you can find a bargain on the current models, it's probably worth the savings rather than waiting for the new ones.

As with the 20 series, the TM10 and SD10 differ from each other only by internal memory; the TM has 16GB built-in, and the SD models have none. The prices will remain unchanged, however, when they ship in September; $549.95 for the HDC-SD10 and $599.95 for the HDC-TM10. The TM10 will be available in black and silver models, and the SD10 will be basic black.

(Credit: Panasonic)

Adding to its SD-card-based AVCCAM series--not to be confused with its P2-card-based and seriously more expensive P2HD series, which includes the AG-HVX200A--the AG-HMC40 joins the AG-HMC150 and its shoulder-mount cousin, the HMC70 in the ranks of Panasonic's pro AVCHD camcorders.

Smaller and lighter than either of its line mates, with a much simpler design, the HMC40 is also the first in its line to includes a trio of full HD resolution 1/4.1-inch 3MOS sensors rather than CCDs. It incorporates a 12X zoom lens of as-yet unknown (to me) focal-length range and can shoot 10.6-megapixel stills (obviously interpolated, since none of the sensors are that high resolution).

Like its brethren, the HMC40 will support up to 21-megabits-per-second recording in a range of HD formats, including 1080 and 720 at 60i, 30p, and 24p frame rates. Pro connections include a removable XLR mic input. Interestingly, the camcorder also has consumer-type features like a touch screen, face-detection AF, and prerecord.

The AG-HMC40 is slated to ship in August for $3,195.

Sony Handycam HDR-TG5 photos

View the full gallery

About a year ago Sony introduced the Handycam HDR-TG1, a painfully pricey pistol-grip camcorder with relatively decent specs for its tiny, titanium, travel-sized body: 1920x1080 AVCHD video, 2.7-inch touch-screen LCD, 10X zoom optically stabilized lens and a 2.4-megapixel ClearVid Exmor CMOS sensor. Now Sony's replacing it with the HDR-TG5, still overly expensive with almost identical insides and outsides, but updated with 16GB built-in memory and geotagging support with Navteq maps. The company's tweaked the menu interface and added its Smile Shutter technology as well.

On one hand, I'm a fan of geotagging and it's naturally suited for compact, travel-friendly devices. However, as I said of the first rollout in the HDR-XR520V, video isn't quite ready for geotagging; unlike photos, there's no metadata standard for storing the information with the file. As a result, Sony has to store it in a sidecar file with data that most applications won't know how to parse. And then you're stuck using Sony's Picture Motion Browser software.

So the real question becomes is it worth paying $1,000 for geotagging, especially given how primitive (or more accurately, absent) support is for metadata on video files? And I must be missing some key piece of market research indicating that people want to spend that much on an everyday camcorder to keep in their pockets, since JVC jumped in to the pool recently, too, with its Everio X. I'll leave you to ponder those questions. However, for those of you who think they're worth it, the HDR-TG5 will be available in May. It'll use the same accessories as the TG1, including the kit with an extra battery, travel charger and pouch and $100 Sony VCL-HGE07TB wide-angle conversion lens.

The XR200V offers some interesting enhancements over the SR10D it replaces.

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

The annual evolutionary step from the Handycam HDR-S10 and HDR-S10D to the HDR-XR100 and HDR-XR200V is a bigger step for one than the other. While both camcorders are based on the same 1/5-inch 2.3-megapixel ClearVid CMOS sensors as their predecessors and have the same 10x and 15x zoom lenses, respectively, the XR200V at least offers a couple of enhancements that might be worth the extra cost over the now-cheaper older models.

Most notably, the XR200V adds GPS for geotagging like its higher end siblings, the XR500V and XR520V. Keep in mind though that video isn't quite ready for geotagging; unlike photos, there's no metadata standard for storing the information with the file. As a result, Sony has to store it in a sidecar file with data that most applications won't know how to parse.

Both models are about 20 percent smaller than last year's models and incorporate the optical stabilizer coverage area enhancements for better compensation while walking, Active Mode, that are found in the XR500 series. It's optional because the larger coverage area results in some resolution degradation around the edges of the images. They also incorporate Sony's latest Smile Shutter and face detection technologies.

The XR200V uses the same 120GB capacity hard disk as the SR10D it replaces; it's slated to ship in February for about $1,000. The SR100 doubles the storage over the SR10 for 80GB. It'll be out in March for about $750.

As with its sibling, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements Adobe pushes the Web subscription message a bit too hard. Take, for instance, the Welcome screen, which is your first encounter with either one of the applications. The InstantMovie, Open Project, and New Project options get relegated to a task bar that's relatively inconspicuous compared with the large, rotating slide show heralding the many benefits of the free and $49.99 Plus membership for Photoshop.com (more project templates, remote access, and 20GB-plus of storage space). Adobe might as well have sold the space as an ad; it's that annoying. (For more on the online and mobile aspects of the Elements release, read our coverage on Download.com.)

This version really feels like an attempt to catch up to competitors. It now includes AVCHD support, for which Adobe has lagged far behind its competitors for a long time. The good news is that it handled every AVCHD file format on my hard disk--from a variety of Canon, Sony, and Panasonic camcorders--without problems.

Its new InstantMovie basically rolls selected clips into prefab templates. They're nice templates, and it does a good job. But when compared with innovations like Pinnacle Studio Plus 12's Montage themes, which allow for some really clever, sophisticated effects, and a friendly implementation for editing them, InstantMovie seems fairly basic and uninspiring. Ditto for its basic SmartSound music-generation implementation. Adobe licenses it like everyone else, but didn't even bother to give it a similar interface to the rest of Premiere.

Using technology from Adobe's Ultra, Premiere Elements now supports rudimentary chroma keying. On one hand, this Videomerge feature is dead simple to use. When you drag a video with a (relatively) solid-colored background into the timeline or onto another video, the program asks if you want to treat it as a Videomerge clip and automatically combines them with the background chroma keyed out. However, Adobe provides no controls for you to tweak the results. Even a simple color tolerance slider could have prevented the flag from showing through Dan Ackerman's skin here.

Granted, orange isn't your standard chroma key color, but in a consumer product, not everything that's shot is intentional. If the point was to find fun new ways of using the clips you have, the implementation just missed the boat.

The one interesting new capability is Smart Tag, which can automatically analyze your clips and keyword them based on video characteristics such as blurred, shaky, high quality, in focus, and so on. You can then, say, choose all the clips that are "high quality" and "in focus." Since it shares much of the organizer with Photoshop, you have access to all the same album and search features. Unfortunately, it can't display basic information such as video resolution without popping up the properties of each individual clip.

This beta was quite sluggish and unstable, at least on my system (which more than meets minimum requirements), but I'm assuming that will disappear by the time the product ships at the end of September ($99.99). I'll let you know, and give you an update on these first impressions.

Canon Vixia HF11

(Credit: Canon)

No, you're not experiencing déjà vu. The iVis camcorders Canon, Inc. announced on July 22 have been reannounced by Canon USA, plus one. There are a few differences this one. For one, we've got a review of the HF11 all ready for your perusal. For another, we here in the U.S. get an extra, more expensive hard-disk-based model than in Japan. And finally, we've got real American pricing and availability info for all.

The HF11 is a higher-end linemate for the popular HF10; it adds a higher bit-rate 24Mbps recording mode and an increase to 32GB built-in flash memory, up from 16GB. (I'm not convinced you really need either; you'll have to read my review to see why.)

Vixia HG21

(Credit: Canon USA)

The hard-disk-based HG20 has the same innards as the HF10/11 and gets a boost to the 12x zoom lens from the HF series. It also gets a bump to a 60GB hard disk--to hold all those large 24Mbps bitrate files--1,920x1,080 resolution, and the ability to record video to an SD card. Its sibling, the HG21, grows to 120GB as well, plus it has an eye-level viewfinder and the better (though same sized) LCD that's on the HF11. As for the basics, they all have the same 12x zoom lens, 3.3-megapixel sensor and produce 1,920x1,080 AVCHD video.

All are slated to ship in September. The HF11 is expected to cost $1,299, the HG21 $1,199 and the HG20 $949.